


You Can't Go Home Again, Sansa Stark (or maybe you can)

by Missy1978



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Everyone except Sandor and Sansa are just mentioned, F/M, Mutual Pining, The night before Thanksgiving, small town
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-27
Updated: 2019-11-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:29:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21577606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy1978/pseuds/Missy1978
Summary: Like many other 20, 30 or even 40 somethings, Sansa Stark has come back home to the small town of Wintertown for Thanksgiving weekend. What’s different this year is that she’s home in time to participate in some of the annual rituals of small town life, and she’s not sure she’s happy about that.
Relationships: Sandor Clegane/Sansa Stark
Comments: 6
Kudos: 46





	You Can't Go Home Again, Sansa Stark (or maybe you can)

**Author's Note:**

> Thomas Wolfe wrote that you can’t go home again. He wasn’t referring to a small, high school football obsessed, town the night before Thanksgiving, but he could have been.

  
_I am a strong, confident, successful woman. I am a strong, confident, successful woman_. Sansa Stark hoped that by muttering that to herself she’d actually begin to believe it as she stood in line with her siblings, her cousin Jon and foster brother Theon outside THE bar in her hometown the night before Thanksgiving.

Somehow Sansa had been roped into coming home to Winterfell the day before Thanksgiving, rather than just showing up at the house in time for the turkey dinner as she did most years.

The problem with that was that everyone now expected her to participate in the pre-Thanksgiving ritual of activities. That included going to the homecoming parade through town and the big bonfire and pep rally at the high school in anticipation of the annual football game Thanksgiving morning against the big rival from the next town over. Sansa had begrudgingly participated: watching the floats roll by, singing the school anthem, chanting the school cheers and now she was (along with everyone else) waiting to get into the bar, where she was sure she was going to see every bitch she ever went to school with.

_I am a strong, confident, successful woman_. With one more affirmation, Sansa and the rest of the Starks were ushered into the bar and snagged a table with enough room for all of them.

Like so many other small towns, Wintertown welcomed their scattered flock home every year for the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. This was a chance to catch up with the friends you’d grown up with, introduce the new people in your life to your hometown, and have the chance to be spoiled by your parents and grandparents for at least a couple of days.

Sansa had no issue with this (in theory) she loved her hometown, what she didn’t love was how it made her feel. Too often in a small town you were defined a certain way, and that was tied to who you were in high school. If you weren’t the captain of the football team, the prom queen, or the class president you were normally defined by how you were viewed by the “popular” people in your class.

And so Sansa Stark, a strong, confident, successful woman, was seen by everyone in her hometown as a shy, awkward mouse who was afraid of her own shadow. The worst part was, whenever Sansa came home and encountered someone from high school, that’s how she felt.

No one can make you feel small like the people you grew up with, like for instance, the prom queen. It didn’t matter that she was now a divorced bottle blond, whose clothes were way too young and tight for a woman of her age and Sansa was a successful business woman living in the city; one raised eyebrow from her and Sansa would feel like crap.

All of those thoughts swirled in Sansa’s head as she sat at the table with her family. Jon, Rob and Theon had gone to the bar to order the first round; shots and beers, because, of course that’s what you drank when you were home.

Sansa sat with Arya and her fiancé Gendry, Jon’s wife Ygritte and Bran; not making eye contact with anyone outside their group, half listening to their conversations, praying tonight didn’t end in disaster. Gendry and Ygritte weren’t from small towns so were unaware of the tension Sansa felt, and the rest of her family still spent enough time in Wintertown that they didn’t give a shit how they were viewed by their former classmates. It was only Sansa whose heart pounded in her chest.

At this moment Sansa regretted that she wasn’t currently dating anyone who could have been used to deflect attention. Her last boyfriend, Harry, was handsome but turned out to be as dumb as a bag of rocks. But it would have been nice to have a handsome man at her side when her classmates swooped in to peck at her (as she was sure they would eventually). Oh well, that was something to keep in mind if she was ever dumb enough to agree to this again. Don’t break up with your dumb as fuck boyfriend 3 weeks before you have to go home. 

The boys returned to the table followed by a waitress laden down with a full tray of drinks. Shots and bottles were distributed to everyone, and after a toast from Rob, everyone threw back their shot. Sansa winced, this was why she didn’t drink shots, it burned the entire was down her throat.

Sansa picked up her bottle to take a sip of the cold beer, and as she raised her eyes she noticed a set of expressive slate grey eyes staring at her from the bar; oh fuck, Sandor Clegane. She jerked her eyes back to her family, hoping he hadn’t noticed that she’d seen him. Sandor Clegane, his name still sent goosebumps down her spine. She’s always thought that the spark between them (even though nothing, other than a drunken kiss the summer after she graduated from high school, had ever happened) would amount to something someday.

He was Rob’s age, a few years older than Sansa, and had shown up at one of the many end of summer parties right before Sansa had left for her freshman year of college. The shots and beer had flowed that night too, and Sansa had “liquid courage” because of it. 

Somehow, impossibly, their year’s long awkward dance around each other had landed them sitting with their legs dangling off the pier, toes in the lake talking about everything and nothing. Sandor Clegane: huge, scarred, with a bark much worse than his bite, was home from college that summer working for a local road construction crew in town. Sansa sometimes saw him on the side of the rode as she drove by on her way to her own summer job at the local daycare.

On really warm days Sandor’s wet t-shirt would cling to him defining every muscle down his front and back; and if she was really lucky she would go by the site at lunchtime when he’d have stripped off his shirt and she would get a glimpse of his hairy well defined torso.

That night, everything seemed to click into place. Sandor, a journalism major, told her about his experiences at college; working for the school paper, the benefits of living off campus, and his goals once he graduated. Sansa in turn told him about her hopes and dreams about getting out of Wintertown and going to college in the city, seeing the world beyond their sleepy little town.

“Be careful, Little Bird; someone might call you a snob”

“Little Bird? Why did you call me that?”

“Because you chirp like a little bird”

Although she should probably be insulted, Sansa grinned at him, she’d never had a nickname before, she liked it, she especially liked that Sandor had given it to her. Sandor took the opportunity to lean in, weave his hand into her hair behind her head and kiss her.

The party continued loudly behind them, but all Sansa could focus on was the feel of Sandor’s lips on hers. He tilted her head and swiped her bottom lip with his tongue, silently asking permission for entry, which Sansa gladly gave him. Eventually the kiss ended, and they drew back and grinned at each other.

“I’ve wanted to do that forever”

“I’ve _wanted_ you to do that forever”

Sandor shook his head and sighed “I’m such an idiot, why did I wait until my last night in town to do that?”

Sansa burst out laughing “Well, you just said that you’re an idiot, I guess that’s why”

Sandor leaned in and rested his forehead on Sansa’s “can I see you when we’re both home again?”

“I’d like that.”

That had been years ago, and they’d hadn’t spoken to each other or even seen each other since. It seemed that they were never home at the same time.

Eventually Sandor moved away from Wintertown when he graduated; putting in his time working at small newspapers, working his way up to larger, then national publications.

Sansa covertly followed his career, as she too moved out of their hometown once she graduated getting a job (and a life) in the city. She always wondered what could have been with Sandor if they were ever in the same place at the same time; but it seemed it just wasn’t meant to be.

Sansa was jolted out of her musings by Rob exclaiming “Oh, hey, look who we have here!” only to look up and see Sandor and his expressive slate grey eyes staring at her (again).

“Hello Starks, and honorary Starks. It’s nice to see all of you together again” Jon indicated that Sandor should have a seat at table, and he pulled up a chair next to Sansa.

“Hello Little Bird, it’s nice to be in the same place at the same time with you.”

Sansa smirked “yes it is, what has it been, 10 years?”

“I think at least that, so how’s the big city”

So into their own conversation neither Sandor nor Sansa noticed the entire table avidly watching them, until Rob commented “it looks like the two of you have some catching up to do; Sandor, would you mind driving Sansa home, the rest of us are taking off” and with that Sansa’s entire family got up and left them sitting at the table alone. 

They both burst out laughing, and Sandor commented “were we that obvious?”

Sansa blushed “well, I might have mentioned you a time or two or a hundred over the years.”

“Did you now, anything good?”

“Nothing I’m going to tell you now; but there might have been some cursing about you not calling me or not having spring break at the same time I had spring break; but that’s just a guess.”

Sandor stood up and reached out his hand to Sansa “come on Little Bird, let’s get out of here. We have lots of catching up to do, and coordinating our schedules so that we’re in the same place at the same time; which might be easy since I just got a job in the city and will be moving there in a month.”

Sansa let Sandor pull her up out of the chair; he kissed her nose as he guided her to the door and commented “I don’t know why people always say that you can’t go home again, this has been the best fucking visit home of my entire life.”

Sansa grinned and wholeheartedly agreed with him.


End file.
